Use 'Amount' and 'Number' Correctly

People often use the words amount and number interchangeably, but they're not the same. Ensuring you've used the correct vocabulary makes your writing more sophisticated.

Do you know which one of the following sentences is correct?

A large amount of students opted to study maths this year.

A large number of students opted to study maths this year.

The second sentence is the correct one. 'Students' is a plural noun so we need to use the word 'number'. Another way of looking at it is to decide whether the noun can be counted or not. Students can be counted, therefore the correct word is number.

If something can't be counted or has no plural, then we use the word 'amount'.

Joey ate a huge amount of chocolate so it's not surprising he was sick.

In this example, we are thinking of chocolate in general terms, so it has no plural. If we talk about separate chocolates then we would need to use 'number' because they can be counted.

Joey ate a huge number of chocolates, so it's not surprising he was sick.

In this activity, you can practise choosing whether to use 'amount' or 'number' in different sentences, so if you are ready, let's get started!